finished at last

I did it just in time - I finished the bobbin lace fan. I was rather worried about putting the lace to the base, because in the instructions I found in an old issue of the german "kloeppelverband"it all looked quite complicated. but eventually I decided to just put my used pricking (covered with sticky plastic) onto the lace pillow and fix the fan "arms" with pins. I used cotton buds to spread wood glue thinly and pressed down the lace - that was it. as long as you make sure that all the arms are spread properly, it's all straightforward. just don't do as I did and follow the advice to press the fan together after all this - or at least wait longer than 3-4 hours - or the lace might stick to the back as well as the front:(( I had a major panic attack, but managed to loosen it all again after a bit of fiddling! if I hadn't noticed the recipient of the fan would probably have looked rather bemused to take out a fan that only opens halfway...

so this is it - my first lace fan:

I am off for a week now - and my special bobbin lace callus has time to soften up again:))

computer problems

we are still having problems with our computer - on some days it won't switch on at all, on others it goes black without apparent reason. we are waiting for ordered replacements; in the meantime I might vanish for times, because one hour a week in the local library is barely enough to clean out my mailbox and write brief answers where urgent! but - tonight the box is still working, so I am going to try a new entry!

I haven't been lazy, but most of my progress has been on the lace board. I did finish a pair of "father's day" socks (for DH, not my father...). I had bought the ball of wool in germany about a year ago, because I liked the way the colours of the yarn change, not in jacquard patterns, but slowly - as if hand dyed! and the yarn doesn't look and feel like my usual sock yarn (I mostly use Regia) - it's plied more loosely and even looks like a handspun! I have another ball in different colours, but I want to keep that for myself! I am going to make a pair of Coriolis socks from Cat Bordhi's book, but they'll take more time and attention - a rather different "make-up" from my usual sock pattern!

I am also still working on the knitty pattern "Aeolian shawl". I am in the last part of the pattern, but even though it's pretty easy to work, the rows have quite a lot of stitches and progress has slowed a bit. I hope to finish the shawl soon though to try out my new "carbon fibre wires"! they are used like blocking wires and I hope they'll make blocking on the bed faster and easier (it's no fun to crawl around on all fours for hours to stick a needle into each stitch of a large lace shawl:))

this is my latest "haul" from the recycling center! I found carpet samples, about 50 cm square, with nicely finished rims, which are useful as "pillows" for the garden, wall etc. nice colours too! I thought of putting 6 of them together like a runner - but I think pushing a needle through the finish of the rims would be extremely hard - so maybe I'll just leave them as they are! I also found several pieces of undyed cotton (blends?) fabrics, one sea grean and a purple/multicolour upholstery fabric, also a larger piece, mainly light yellow, with flowers on it (a table cloth maybe?) - and several interesting cones of yarn. the black is a blend of wool and alpaca, the charcoal has no label, but I bet there's mostly wool in it. there's one large cone (1 kg) of fine sea island cotton and two cones of a blend - I'd say linen cotton... and a smaller cone of waxed linen - too fine for knitting, but I am sure it would be a strong warp yarn! if all else failed I could just ply it up and use it as garden twine:)) DS went home with a full box of stickers, labels, cardboard pieces etc. - happy as Larry, he loves browsing around in there.... pity that it takes a trip by taxi and train to get there - but on the other hand, maybe that's a good thing - or our small cottage would one day split open and all our collective stashes would just burst out:))

Aeolian shawl

when I finished my grey coat I still had some leftovers on the cones of commercial yarns - mainly some fine wool and some of the white cashmere. so I grabbed the cones together with some very fine schappe silk and plied them together until I ran out of cashmere. I had planned to knit the Laminaria shawl from knitty, but when I saw the new estonian lace pattern "Aeolian shawl" - I just fell for it and started to knit. the first part is very regular and an easy tv knit - but slowly the number of stitches increases - and yesterday I changed over to the "agave pattern", which needs a bit more care (but still knittable in front of the tv:)) because of different stitches and esp. the nupps. this picture shows half of the shawl - already too many stitches to pull out the full project on a 120 cm long addi lace needle (I love the sharp tips - they make knitting the 9 stitches of the nupps together so easy! makes up for the slightly metallic scent....)

the yarn knits up nicely - but I think I might increase the size slightly - which can be done quite easily as pattern sequences can be added at certain stages. I was thinking about painting the shawl after I finish the knitting - but I'll wait and see how it all turns out!

at least the weather is more like "irish summer" again and it's quite nice to sit outside for a while with my knitting - without melting in the sun:)

just in case....

... you can't reach me via email or I won't react to comments or questions: we are having computer troubles. the harddrive seems to be effected and the computer is acting rather erratic to say it carefully:(( if I seem to have vanished - don't worry, it's not me, it's just the computer (quite old already and probably close to "kicking the bucket", if computers do that sort of thing).

summer is here!

we haven't had temperatures like this for quite some time - our last summer lasted 2 weeks and wasn't particularly warm even then. but since last thursday we've had temperatures between 24 and 27 deg. C - in the shade! way too hot for me (I think I was a chocolate bar in a former life:(() - so I am trying to hide in the house or at least in the shade during the day... knitting and spinning are only possible in the evening, because everything sticks - and housework takes place before 11 in the morning - or not at all if possible!

but at least I can do bobbin lace... and this is a good thing, because even though the pillow sat right behind me, I didn't manage to do all that much in the last few weeks. this shows my progress - and most of it happened in two days! a lot still to do and my time window is shrinking quickly!!

in the meantime my pre-ordered fan base arrived as well! it's made from pear and I like the colour a lot - a warm brown tone. I was surprised at the smoothness of the timber - and also at the amount of sticks in between the edge pieces! when I have finished the lace the finished fan part is glued to the base. I hope it'll turn out well - I might make another one for myself, because I like the way it looks. or maybe I'll go for a miniature fan first, because our topic for the group project from the Connacht Textile Crafters is "miniatures" as well.

I am going down for a glass of iced tea now - and hope for a slightly less hot weekend (probably all the people in warm climates are laughing their heads off about me just now:))....

show your colours - the finishing line

the project is finished, but all participants are supposed to fill in a questionnaire, so here it goes:

1. Did you enjoy the project?

yes, I did, even though sometimes I found it difficult to find the photo(s) and finish a blog entry for each day (that's why I cheated a bit here and there and put one or two days into one...)

2. Have you been more aware of colours in your daily life?

I do see most of the colours in my garden or in my textile anyway - but I found it interesting to look at other people's photos to see what they came up with. it never occured to me to take pix of beige eggs etc.:))

3. Would you enjoy more projects like this, offered by himbeermarmelade.de?

yes, as long as the project doesn't run any longer - my concentration went a bit awry towards the end!

4. If you'd be able to think about other colours - would you keep going even though the project is finished?

I don't think I would enter other pix into this project - but I do upload different photos all the time anyway - of things I like, plants I see etc.

5. Which colour provided you with the highest number of ideas?

answering the other way round would be easier:)) I didn't put up any of the metal colours and not all that much in colours I really don't particularly like, such as beige and browns.... green of course is easy with plants - not so easy with my textiles as I don't wear them often and they aren't as easy to dye as the other colours....

6. Where did you read about the project?

I found the link on Kaybee's blog.

7. Which part of the project did you like least/what would you have done differently?
at first I didn't mind the daily entries - but after a week or so I realised that I felt kind of pressurized into doing entries. I wouldn't mind a very long project - say a whole year - but with only one entry a week (or even a month?:)). other than that it was fine.

8. Which part of the project did you like best?

browsing around other blogs to compare ideas! and finding some really unexpected entries...

9. Show your favourite photo and explain why you've chosen this.

hm, a favourite of my own? or one of the other blogs? I don't want to steal anyone's photo - but I did like the one on sew-mad's blog, where she is in several places in her room at once:))

my own would be this - and I like the mix of colours and the fine lines inside the flowers - and also the memories of the phantastic scent! even though it is a bit blurry....

10. which other topics for photo projects can you think of?

hmm, let's see: the 4 seasons would come to mind, or just certain periods of time, either in people's lives (early years etc.) or during the year (christmas etc.). photos of the area the participants live in - might be interesting to see this in different countries? like: show us the picture of your house, your favourite house, your library, your town park, your local church/cemetery etc. as long as I don't have to organize this:))

so this is really the last entry about "show your colours" - from now on it's going to be about wip, ufos and fos again - and all the other things I tend to "waste" my time on!

show your colours - all of them

this is the last entry for showing my colours - even though I am a day late.... I skipped the metal ones. deep inside I prefer the living colours in plants or the lively ones in textiles to the hard and lifeless metals anyway. but today it's a firework of all of the colours together, so here are some of my more vivid dye and fibre results of the last few years.

this is the handspun and handdyed result for my "colibri" shrug - half silk and half merino wool.

this used to be the finished shrug - but when I wore it the first time I realised that sleeves this wide are totally impractical for me. I wear the shrug quite a lot - but not in the opera or the theatre! I always work with my hands and sleeves hanging about are just no good. so eventually I took off the lace border, unravelled part of the sleeves on both sides, decreased the width and re-knitted the lace border - two complete pattern sequences less = perfect to wear now. not too wide, but not tight either! the shrug is very cozy and warm, but also light and easy to wear.

I still had a lot of the yarn left over, which is turned into moebius scarves bit by bit. I am down to the last one now, which resulted in three scarves of different lengths and patterns. nice to have in stash for unexpected gifts!

I

this was another rather colourful project - due to DS's wish to have a sweater in "all the colours". I didn't dye the fibres though; I bought the top from wollknoll in germany, spun a singles yarn and knitted it - quite large at the time, but by now it fits perfectly. which of course means that I'd better get another one on the needles - by next winter it's probably too small!

this one was great fun to make. I had planned on making a Harry Potter sweater and left Stefan to decide which motives to make. of course, he loves Dumbledore and Sirius, esp. in dog form. so I started with knitting Dumbledore.... a lot of threads on the back and a lot of yarn winding later - here he is. but - I ran out of suitable yarn for the shaggy dog Sirius, which was supposed to go on the back! I had a nice black-brown-grey alpaca fibre in my stash, that would have made the perfect Sirius dog - but somehow I didn't get around to spin the yarn. so, nearly 2 years later - I suppose the sweater parts need serious (not sirius:)) enlarging on all sides to fit the much taller boy! I have to think about what to do with this - before Stefan is too "old" to wear a sweater with motives like this!! for a while he used to ask me nearly every day, how his sweater was coming along... he hasn't asked for a long time now - I suppose he lost patience with the progress (or rather the lack of it:(()

this finishes the "show your colours" series - I have to admit that closer to the end it became a bit of a struggle to do the entries for this. summer is just not a good time to sit in front of the computer too much! back to my projects - I am waiting for nicer weather to take pix of some finished stuff!